Concrete modules with self-healing oyster reef structure in Florida Panhandle Bay installed to protect military base

[Jim__]

From phys.org

A single Reefense module. It will be part of more than 800 interconnected modules forming the backbone of the experimental hybrid reef. Credit: David Bushek
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U.S. Air Force officials installed a new kind of structure in the waters of St. Andrew Bay on the shore of the Tyndall U.S. Air Force Base in Northwest Florida on Oct. 30—the first section of a Rutgers University-designed "self-healing" reef made of custom-designed concrete modules and living oysters. The reef is designed to protect the base and its people from hurricanes and tidal surges.

As visitors watched, a crane lowered a segment of what ultimately will become a 160-foot-wide reef composed of about 800 interconnected concrete cubes Rutgers scientists created with colleagues collaborating from several institutions. The structures are being hoisted into shallow water about 200 feet off the shoreline.

The concrete provides a hard substrate that oysters need for attachment and is designed specifically so that more oysters will naturally gravitate to the structures over the next year, ultimately forming resilient hybrid "living" reefs.

Air Force officials are testing the experimental reef to assess whether it provides adequate coastal defenses against oncoming storms. The international effort involving more than 60 researchers centers on the development of self-healing, hybrid biological and engineered reef-mimicking structures to mitigate the coastal flooding, erosion and storm damage that increasingly threaten civilian and U.S. Department of Defense infrastructure and personnel.

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